Current status of project management in South Africa

Project management has been in use worldwide for many thousands of years. This research paper attempts to document the state of project management in the South African context as a result of a study in which eighty-one respondents in the project management environment in South Africa participated. It was found that: internal stakeholders are more likely to have similar opinions on project success than external stakeholders and project managers use optimistic reporting as they do not want to let the project stakeholders down. The top five factors for achieving project success are: teamwork, cost management, project planning, scope management and leadership. The six most important indicators of project success: client/customer satisfaction, by project team skill level, senior management buy-in, communication or project reporting, problem scope management and project delivery on time. As the majority of South African organisations do not use project management evaluation tools, there was no consensus on whether South African projects differ from international projects.